Double Duty Wenatchee Post

We've been east of the Cascades the past two weekends rafting on the Wenatchee River. Since we finally got some spring sunshine and warmth, the snow has started to melt and the rivers are swelling. In my opinion, this is the best time to run the 'snatch, since other local runs are above recommended flows.

Two weeks ago, the temperatures were at near record highs and the Wenatchee was above 15,000cfs on Saturday the 17th. Due to some mismanagement, I ended up on the banks with the dog, as the 96F weather was too much for him to bear on his own. Kat took down 4 of our friends for a huge ride, and I snapped a few pictures instead.

I did get to raft this past weekend, with flows at 11,000-12,000cfs. This is an ideal flow, as the waves become enormous but almost all are runnable. Most of the rapids feature huge standing haystack waves or big meaty holes with recovery time after each. We ended up organizing 3 boats on Saturday and five for Sunday, which is large for us without meeting other WRRR boaters or joining another organized group.

We're inching closer to our California road trip - we leave nine days from today. I'll put up a post with a map and list of our planned destinations sometime this coming week. We don't have any rafting planned this coming weekend, but may try for a day trip if we can make the time.

Our Former Company Cleaning up a Flip

Wenatchee River

We had a great time rafting the Wenatchee River over the weekend with our soon to be married friends Lance and Jacinda. Jacinda has recently been bit by the rafting bug, so we got her out on the river with a chance to guide the boat on her own. She did great on her first real opportunity on the stick - especially after she took her first swim! The river was a decent moderate level, but will probably skyrocket this coming weekend due to the forecasted heat wave. Most likely, we'll be out there again since most of the rivers this side of the mountains will be flowing well above our comfort zone.

Kat and I have been working out the details of our road trip. We've made some reservations at campgrounds, so our itinerary is becoming more structured than we originally thought. I'll put up a post detailing our plans once they are ironed out a bit more.

We'll also be bottling the two batches of beer we still have in fermenters - the IPA 3 and Wheat Ale 1. If we bottle by this weekend, these will be drinkable during the trip. For once, we have an opportunity to bottle two batches on the same day. This is because the wheat ale is not dry-hopped (and therefore not transfered to secondary). It will mean for a long day of washing and sanitizing bottles, but will be nice to knock out two batches.

Here's a couple shots from the weekend:


Jacinda on the stick


Marc tripping out in the cave

Middle Middle Snoqualmie Video

Here's a short little video I took at the bottom of the House Rocks rapid on the Middle Fork Snoqualmie today.

Wheat Ale 1

Yep, we went ahead and brewed a Wheat Ale I had been thinking about for the last couple of days. What made this batch more fun is we got to use a brand new piece of brew equipment recently purchased, a wart chiller. This item is simply coiled copper tubing with an attachment for a hose on one end and a outflow hose on the other. This allows the brewer to rapidly cool the beer to the temperature that the yeast should be added. For us, this took just under 15 minutes. For comparison, our last batch which was cooled using the ice bath method took over 75. This should give us better tasting beer, and reduce 'chill haze', which is essentially cloudy beer and is only aesthetic.

The recipe we used is basically our own. We modeled it a bit off a clone recipe, but went ahead and changed several things based on our own experience. This should be a light ale, hopefully very tasty over the upcoming summer months.

We're off to the river this afternoon - the first of the weekly Middle Fork Snoqualmie runs we've attended. This is a quick class III-IV run just outside of North Bend, about 45 minutes out of the city. Now that the weather is finally warming up, we should be able to run this more regularly.

Below are a couple of photos from the Green.

Danger ahead, Quig!


Me just below paradise rapid.


Jessica's first time through the Nozzle.

Green River Cleanup

Saturday I joined WRRR for their annual Green River cleanup. There were over 150 people on the river this day to help pitch in and pick up garbage along the river (and also to enjoy a day of boating). Our friends the Quigs and Dave Hogan and his girlfriend Robin joined me for the trip. Kat unfortunately had to stay home as she had woke up with flu symptoms. Dave Hogan is an outstanding photographer so, I handed him our camera to document the trip. Once he's finished with the pictures, I'll post a few up. There is also a good chance of some video surfacing of our run through the Nozzle, the class IV rapid on the Green. Shelly Becker was a the bottom of he rapid with her camcorder and I'm fairly sure she was filming us. Shelly is an outstanding catarafter from WRRR, and has been filming and editing videos for a little while and doing a great job of it. Some of these videos show her and others running some of the toughest whitewater around, I highly recommend checking them out.

Not much happening on the homebrew front. I do have some time this week however, so maybe will finally brew a American Wheat Ale. I'll be sure to post about it if it happens.

White Salmon Report

Great time had by all at the White Salmon river. Aside from the massive amounts of quality beer, there was also a ton of good food cooked by chef Miller. I finally had a chance to run an inflatable kayak down this river on Saturday, and managed to only fall out once! Here are a couple of videos Kat took on Sunday.

Middle Fork American River

We just booked our reservation with All Outdoors Rafting to raft the middle fork of the American River, just outside Sacramento, CA. We're putting together a road trip to include this and visit some of our favorite breweries. More details on that to come - in the meantime, check out this video of the stretch we'll be on!

Back to posting

Been away for a little while, sorry about that. I've been thinking a lot about the blog, just not posting. I feel as if I've almost been hyping up each entry in my mind before it gets written, instead of just sitting down and sharing the recent news. I'm going to try this more personal approach and see if it can't lead to some more content.

First, an update on the brewing since early March. We've brewed two beers, an ESB and an Imperial Pale Ale. The most fascinating thing to report about this is we used the same yeast for both beers. When shopping for ingredients for the ESB (Grand Teton Brewing Bitch Creek ESB clone) we decided to try a special yeast that had come in. This was the Pacman yeast, formulated by Wyeast specifically for Rogue. It was a mutation of the strain that was called for in the recipe, so it was only a slight change. Anyway, when racking this beer the following week, Kat used directions she found online to reuse the dormant yeast for our Imperial IPA (I'll post them when I can find them). I think it took a little longer for the yeast to take off than the full package, but once it got going it was aggressive. We racked it just a few days ago and it smells great. Looking forward to that one.

We've also finally sampled many of our batches. Here's a rundown of all the drinkable brews we have so far, and our thoughts.

• Brown Ale (Bob's Homebrew) - Full flavored malt with mellow hops. We couldn't believe how great this was for our first attempt, and neither could many of our friends. Supposedly dark maltier beers like this age better than the hoppier pale ales, so this could be really amazing later on.
• IPA 1 (Dogfish Head 60min clone) - This one took longer than we expected (although now feel that 4 weeks in a bottle is required), but was a great blend of hop character. We actually compared this to a bottle bought from the brewery. The flavors were very different, most likely due to the yeast in the recipe not available. But as stand alone beers, we both agreed we'd prefer to drink our homebrew over the actual beer. We'll probably try our version of the recipe again, with a few modifications.
• Red Ale 1 (Red Tail Ale clone) - This beer is disappointing and turned out pretty bland. It's a drinkable beer, just not very exciting, with no real noticeable hop or malt character. We wouldn't brew this recipe again.
• Pliny the Elder clone - Originally we titled this as a double IPA, but I don't really think that applies to this beer. This thing is a hop sledgehammer, as the aroma and bitterness clobbers you in the face. We've only tried it a couple of times, and saving the majority of this batch for next weekend, my birthday. It probably will have have mellowed just enough by then.
• Porter 1 (Avery New World Porter clone) - Our second dark beer turned out just as good as the first, and maybe better. This thing is fantastic, subtle hints of chocolate and a nice hop aroma. Very smooth and drinkable. We'll use this recipe as a framework for future porters I'm sure.
• IPA 2 (Lagunitas IPA clone) - We had high expectations for this beer and they have held up. This has a very nice flavor with a bite of hops at the aftertaste. We held the IPA challenge last night between this beer and our first IPA, and this one was decided the champ.

We've got the Rye bottled as well, but it won't be ready for another two weeks. The ESB will get bottled this weekend, and the Imperial was dry-hopped on Wednesday. We probably won't do much more homebrewing until I can get working again. Yeah, that's right, I am officially unemployed as of April 1st. At least I don't have to worry about buying beer. We do have a surplus of left-over ingredients, so there might be a brewday or two still left this spring.

I'd also like to mention an awesome rafting trip we went on last weekend. We joined our friends Paul and Matt down on the Wind River, near Carson, WA. This is a serious class IV+ run with long stretches of continuous whitewater and some BIG drops. Definitely the toughest paddling trip of the year. We had great runs both days. Saturday was cold with snow in the morning, but a dozen determined rafters still went down. Both boats flipped at the same place on the run, but fortunately after the toughest stretch and we recovered in a reasonable time. Sunday's weather was surprisingly nice with the sun following us almost the entire trip. I managed to get thrown from the raft, but nobody else did. You know, I should talk to Matt about that.

The only problem with the Wind River is the camping. In years past, we've always camped out right at the take-out, which is nothing more than a muddy parking lot. It's always wet and cold, not to mention the lack of decent tent sites. I told Kat a few weeks before the trip, "I really want to raft this river, but I am not camping in that spot." We decided to get a motel in Stevenson Saturday night, which really made all the difference for the weekend. Our friends that were staying overnight also decided to join us, and we had a hilarious night hanging out in town. One of our favorite small breweries, Walking Man Brewery is in Stevenson, so we sampled many of their beers, and tall pints of the Homo Erectus, their Imperial IPA (such a tasty brew). I splurged and picked up a T-shirt as well.

I'll post more, I swear. Cheers!

Lagunitas IPA Clone and Green River

We decided to go ahead and brew another IPA this past weekend. Our reasoning was that since IPA is usually our style of choice, we might as well go ahead and brew a bunch so we have a stash over the summer months when we won't be brewing as much (due to time and temperatures). I've been eyeing the Lagunitas IPA clone recipe for awhile now, as this is one of our favorite beers. The batch went off without a hitch, and included Horizon, Willamette and a ton of Cascade hops. We decided to alter the recipe a tab, and will dry-hop this with another ounce and a half of Cascade. We also bottled our Red Tail clone and racked our porter. Quite the manufacturing line we have in the kitchen the last few Saturdays.

On Sunday, we loaded up the boat and joined WRRR for a trip down the Green River Gorge. Although it was chilly in the morning, the weather was fantastic and we enjoyed sunny skies all day. Kat and I "R2ed" (just the two of us paddling) this trip, which is nice since we usually have additional paddlers along for the ride. The Green has some outstanding whitewater, including a IV+ section known as Mercury drop and the Nozzle. Mercury has some powerful hydraulics including a couple meaty holes that are necessary to navigate cleanly. Directly after Mercury is the Nozzle, a 5-6 foot wide gap between two large boulders which is the only runnable slot. If you have swimmers in Mercury, there's not much time to recover and make the Nozzle which makes this section generally pretty hairy. Everyone in the group had clean lines and we enjoyed an outstanding day on the river.

Not sure on the schedule for next weekend yet. We do have a bunch of things to catch up on, so we may delay our next brew for another week. Our Pliny clone will be bottled on Saturday, which will be an interesting task. Looking forward to smelling more of those hops - yum!

Skagit river and IPA #1

Second post and we already get to write about both passions!

On Saturday, we took my family up on the Skagit River for a scenic float. There aren't any rapids to write about, but we did see many bald eagles in their natural habitat. The Skagit River is the largest gathering of the eagles in the lower 48 states.

Holy crap was it cold! We've done this trip 3 or 4 times before, and while it's always a bit chilly, this is the first time we've been snowed on while on the river. It didn't just snow - it dumped on us. The crew all kept their smiles and had great attitudes so I applaud them (especially mom, who doesn't do so well on boats as it is). Kat and I ended up meeting some friends who were running the river tomorrow - Mike and Leah - and we ended up talking quite a bit about homebrewing. Mike used to homebrew quite a bit awhile back, and our new enthusiasm got him thinking about getting back into the hobby. I have mixed feelings about this, because he offered us the use of some carboys, and if he's brewing again he might need them...

Sunday was brew day. We started by racking (moving the fermenting beer from one container to another) our brown ale to a glass carboy for secondary fermentation. It smelled fantastic! Some of the specialty grains we used for the pre-boil steeping really came through. We each took a taste of the "green beer" and could tell that it was premature. Okay, we knew that before tasting it, but it was interesting trying the infancy and understanding a bit more about the time it takes for a beer to really taste great. We'll leave the brown ale in the carboy for two weeks before bottling.

We decided to brew an IPA loosely based on the Dogfish Head 60-minute IPA. What makes this beer unique is that the hops are continually added throughout the boil. Our previous beer had hop additions at the start of the boil, and then again 40 minutes into the boil. This IPA recipe called for 1 ounce of hops added continually for one hour. It was fun at first, but did become pretty tedious 40 minutes in. This time we did take hydrometer readings, and will be able to more accurately check when the beer is ready to be racked and also the estimated alcohol percentage. IPA is our favorite style of beer, so we're really excited to see how this one turns out.